Midwives

As a child, Phyo Lay would be beaten for behaving like a girl. Now 21, he is comfortable living as a woman and wishes everyone could accept him for who he is. In this charming short, he introduces us to Burma's evolving gay culture.

This film portrays a group of Myanmar women protestors and activists living in a shelter in Mae Sot in Thailand. Their lives shaped by Myanmar’s Spring Revolution, they have fled the violence and oppression of their country’s military junta and now find themselves in an unwelcoming land.

The painter Rahula lives a modest but contended existence with his family in Mingun, a village on the banks of the Ayeyarwaddy 11 km upriver from Mandalay. As a new work takes shape on a canvas in his studio next door to the towering base of Mingun's famously brick pagoda, we learn how this easy-going artist has managed to survive a sizable chunk of Myanmar's chequered history. Sawing the air with a cheroot, the jovial Rahula also reveals how he acquired his unusual name, his now successful abstract style, and his supportive wife, of whom he admits: 'If it weren't for her, I would still be painting pictures of monks and pagodas for the tourists.'

When the Paungdaw Oo monastic school was founded near Mandalay in 1993 the aim was to provide orphans and children from disadvantaged families with a decent education. Fifteen years later, the school has swelled to 7200 pupils and is a resounding success not least on account of its inspired, child-centred approach to teaching (known as CCA) as well as the integral role played by teachers, parents and income-generating vocational training programmes. In this lively portrait, the school's abbot and several of Paungdaw Oo's teachers – many of whom were once pupils there themselves – talk about the school's CCA concept, the astonishing benefits of encouraging children to think for themselves, and how these methods can be a model for schools across Myanmar.